


The Opposite Of Faith

by Analinea



Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [3]
Category: Charlie's Angels (2019)
Genre: Carrying, Enemy to Caretaker, F/F, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Please..., Pre-Relationship, Sabina whump, Seizures, Whump, Whumptober 2020, get it out, it's light imo, kind of mercenary AU, mercenary!Jane, the girls didn't meet at Townsend, the relationship is hinted at, themes were
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26855287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: There are things no one is ever prepared for. On the darker end of the spectrum there’s death, but Jane liked to believe she was always ready to lose people.
Relationships: Elena Houghlin & Jane Kano & Sabina Wilson
Series: Be still, my whumper's heart [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947337
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	The Opposite Of Faith

**Is certainty** (Claudia Gray)

There are things no one is ever prepared for. On the darker end of the spectrum there’s death, but Jane liked to believe she was always ready to lose people. 

She’s been proven wrong about that. The disaster that has been her last mission with MI6 is a burden she will carry as a warning to never let people in; they betray you, leave you to die, write you off as an acceptable loss, and all you can do is watch your partner fade away in your arms after you promised her everything was going to be alright.

Jane knows it was her own fault, she does. Her decisions brought her there. But it’s her handlers that abandoned her despite big words about men left behind and family. 

Being a mercenary is easy. 

She has the skills, the trust issues, and the loose morals. She can make do with the loneliness, even the nights she can’t sleep and the ones she wakes up crying.

She can make do with the enemies she makes along the way, even the annoying ones.

The Townsend agency is the absolute worst, Jane decides, because they make working so damn difficult; their interference doesn’t keep her from being successful though, Jane  _ is _ the best at what she does

But she’s growing tired of their constant opposition. And their cheerful tries to recruit her.

Back to the loose morals. 

Jane isn’t the type to kill a child and she won’t ever kill for the pleasure of it, but she  _ will _ hurt someone bad enough to reach her goals. 

Which she does to the next Townsend wannabe spy they send after her. It gets her message across: they stop their attempts at making friends. She wasn’t expecting the cheeky player to turn serious, if she’s honest. She starts losing against them the next times they have real reasons to oppose each other.

She almost regrets the way things were before. But at least, it’s challenging. It becomes something to expect. 

And Jane is good at the expected.

What she’s not good at is  _ this _ .

She watches the shimmery golden tattoo at the back of the Townsend girl’s neck as they stumble down empty corridors with the scientist one –Houghlin?

This has gone to absolute shit.

They get to a room in a subbasement Jane knows for sure isn’t on the company’s plans, forgotten to time and endless rebuildings.

The Townsend girl stops, leaning on a wall for support as she pants. Her blond hair sticks to her way too pale forehead; Jane doesn’t move to catch her when she slides down the wall, shaking all over. 

“Okay, new plan,” the girl gasps, “I, uh–” she trails off, eyes glazing over. Okay. Jane can’t...whatever’s happening, she can’t let her die right in front of her. She kneels, taps the girl’s clammy cheek. 

“Hey,” she roughly calls, “stay with me.”

“What do we do? What do we do?” Houghlin says, rocking on her feet, looking around nervously. Jane had almost forgotten her; she also has no patience left.

“We calm down, for one!” she snaps.

Houghlin freezes, wide eyes fixating on Jane with a hint of fear. Her mouth hangs half open on her interrupted litany.

“You’re so damn demanding,” the Townsend girl slurs a little, head lolling to the side. Jane has no idea what’s wrong with her, and for some reason that terrifies her more than any mission ever has. “Are you going to lose your temper with the woman down, next? Oh, wait,” she rolls her head back to Jane with a grin, but her eyes are accusing. “Should I be worried?”

So she knows who Jane is. Her heart skips a beat, but she reminds herself that it doesn’t matter. People can pass sentences as much as they want it won’t make Jane start feeling guilty about anything. 

“No,” she answers without breaking eye contact. “What’s wrong with you?”

The girl pauses, narrowing her eyes at Jane with a frown. She must decide she doesn’t care, because next thing she starts chuckling. “Too fucking much, dude. Why don’t you leave?” She sounds genuinely curious.

Jane can’t articulate why, but she’s rooted to the spot. Logically, this mission is a massive fail and she’s lucky if the only consequence will be not getting paid. She should get out of here as fast as she can and pack up her things to get to the closest border. “Your people coming to get you?”

The girl closes her eyes. “No uh...no I got hit with…,” she breathes out. When she gestures vaguely to her shoulder, not meeting Jane’s eyes, Jane wonders if she’s embarrassed at having been caught by something. “With the tech,” she finishes.

“Shit,” Jane and Houghlin curse at the same time. The scientist crouches next to the Townsend girl, starts prodding at the front of the girl’s shoulder before apologizing profusely for making her hiss in pain. 

Jane glances at the spot Houghlin is currently shamelessly undressing, to the vehement protests of the other girl, and sees absolutely no trace of an entry wound. Nasty weapon they developed there. 

Whatever means the girl had of contacting her agency, it’s fucked with by the tech. 

“I can feel it,” Houghlin says, but Jane can only see the scrunched up face of the spy, trying so very hard not to make a sound. “I’m so, so sorry,” Houghlin breathes out. Jane looks at her next, at her downturned eyes, bitten lip, and her unshed tears. She can’t start pitying those two; no matter the feelings, once you start having them they never go away.

“‘s not your fault,” the Townsend girl grits out, “you w’re cocer...coece...c–” 

“Coerced,” Jane finishes for her when it gets almost painful to watch her struggle for her words. The girl nods in her direction vaguely before continuing. “New plan,” her voice is strained, but she makes a visible effort to speak clearly, eyes in Jane’s, “before it inevitably gets worse, you–” she grips Jane’s wrist with surprising speed and force, but her hand falls back down when Jane jerks back, which doesn’t seem to bother her “–are going to take it out.”

“What?” Jane sounds like a petulant bitch, she’s very aware of that. Before –her brain tries to halt that line of thinking, but it’s too late– her partner used to get a rise out of her by saying that she has a mean case of resting bitch voice. 

“Listen,” the girl’s head twitches weirdly to the side, her eyes closing before she focuses back on Jane, “once it’s out I can contact my people, extract Elena like I was supposed to,” she points to the scientist with her chin, “and  _ you _ ,” she points at Jane, “get your prototype.”

Stained with blood. Jane hates it. She hates that she considers it, and finds the offer acceptable. Most of all, she despises that the pain she’ll cause is not even a counter argument in her mind. 

She buries all of that under the reasonable voice that says this is the best for the three of them.

“Okay.”

It’s Houghlin’s turn to look at her with her eyebrows raised. “What? You  _ can’t _ .”

She looks her dead in the eyes. “It’s the job. And you know what happens if I don’t.” Houghlin developed the thing. She looks away. 

As if to prove Jane’s point, there’s a horrible gasp, deep and guttural; Jane turns to the Townsend girl just in time to watch her almost crack her skull on the wall behind her when her head shoots back, eyes rolled up. 

Her back arches off, arms fully extended and locked– she stops breathing. Jane could be the one having a seizure, with the way she’s unable to move suddenly. She doesn’t even hear Houghlin speaking. Barely reacts when she’s pushed to the side so Houghlin can get at the girl to gently lie her down on her side, putting her own jacket under her head.

Jane’s definitely not equipped for this. For the memories it calls.

“How long?” she croaks out when the girl stills, takes a breath.

“Forty seconds,” Houghlin answers, fingers at the other’s pulse point. “You’re right,” she adds, turning to Jane with a determination underlined by panic, “we need to get it out.”

“Who got’n? Did ‘e get me?” the girl mutters, rolling her head around, eyes unfocused.

Houghlin shushes her gently, “No, honey, you’re safe,” then addresses Jane again, who’s trying very hard to forget about broken promises, “it’s going to get worse. You said you could do it.”

“Aren’t you the scientist?” she asks, but she’s already shucking off her jacket to free her arms and taking out her knife. 

“I do machines, not people.”

Jane stops for a second to glance back at her from under her lashes. “You know how that sounds, right?”

“She does machines,” theTownsend girl snorts, blinking up at Jane, “why’s my shoulder burning?” Tears start welling up in her eyes, and Jane can’t bear that. She can’t bear the up-close. 

“Do you have anything that I could use to–?” 

Disinfection doesn’t really matter right now, but still, Houghlin shakes her head no, so Jane gets back to the more and more confused girl.

She started whimpering, weakly clawing at her shoulder. The thing buried under her skin is designed to hurt as much as it can before killing its target. It’s getting hard to compartmentalize when everytime Jane blinks she sees Sarah, bleeding out, pleading.

“I’m going to move you, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, rolls the girl so her uncovered shoulder is facing her, blocks out the weak cries.

The pale skin looks unmarred except for a bit of dirt. Where is she supposed to cut, and how deep? Jane starts hesitating, a dangerous space that leaves room for doubt and death.

“Right there,” Houghlin points at a dot, barely more than a freckle. Her finger is shaking. “It’s programmed to go half an inch deep.”

“Half a fucking inch?” Jane whisper shouts, turning to a pale Houghlin. Not her fault, really, Jane reminds herself. She closes her eyes. Wets her lips, wanting to say sorry but having forgotten the shape of those words. 

“Please…” they both twist back to the girl, noticing that she’s started shaking again. They can’t see her face with how she turned it to the floor, but her voice is drowning in tears, weak. “Please, it hurts.” 

Jane stops wasting time. “Hold her,” she orders without looking away from her objective. For half a second, she wants to say something.

She wants to say it’s going to be alright.

But she remembers Sarah; she bites her tongue. 

Jane gets closer while Houghlin moves to the other side so she can get a good grip. Jane bends down, places the tip of the knife right above the entry point.

“Stop!” Houghlin cries out above the now sickly familiar sound of someone choking. 

The girl starts seizing again.

“How long?” 

Just as she asks, trying to calm her frayed nerves at the sight of the girl’s lips turning blue, it stops. The girl stays out of it longer this time, but eventually she groans.

“Almost a full minute,” Houghlin whispers, shaken by the whole thing. 

“I can’t–” the girl whimpers, “it hurts.” Her sobs are violent, unrestrained. “Get it out, please,” she begs. 

Jane has to close her eyes to keep Sarah from spilling out and killing someone else, taking a breath and in the same exhale getting close to the girl’s shoulder to start cutting.

She screams. Houghlin has a hard time keeping her down, and it’s hard to avoid the jerking of the blade. Blood wells out and starts rolling down, the wound probably turning more gruesome than necessary. “Please!” the girl cries. Jane keeps going.

The tip of the blade rolls on something hard that doesn’t feel like bone. Jane stops. “How am I supposed–?” then shakes her head, bites her lip. “Sorry,” she manages to get past her teeth, and gets into the wound with her own fingers. It’s not a scream anymore, barely human.

“They’ll hear us,” Houghlin finds the mental space to note, struggling with the bucking girl under her arms. 

Jane can’t answer, she’s too busy focusing on not puking then and there by thinking about anything but what she hears and feels under her fingers. “I got it.” She could cry. She rips it out. 

The girl keeps crying, but she stops howling at least. “It’s okay,” Jane hears herself say despite herself, looking at the shiny ball of silver between her bloody fingers, so innocent looking. “It’s okay, it’s done,” she repeats, “you’re okay.” 

Then she turns to the side, and throws up.

Jane knows about a training that never lets you pass out, even when you can’t get up anymore. It’s why she’s lenient enough to carry the girl on her back; she’s recovering fast but she’s still too out of it for the speed they need to move at.

Behind them, running footsteps grow louder by the second.

“You didn’t leave,” the girl mutters. Jane doesn’t answer, concentrates on breathing. “They didn’t answer. I think we’re out of reach.”

“Or maybe they’re–” She snaps her mouth shut, berating herself for letting out even that much.

“They’re what? Gone?” She seems to find the idea funny. “They wouldn’t. It’s not like…” she trails off, buries her head into Jane’s shoulder like it’s her turn to regret what she was about to say.

“Whatever,” Jane bites out, turning a corner and glancing back to see if Houghlin is following. She is, face set with determination. “We’re getting to a safe house tonight, and tomorrow you’ll deal with your shit on your own.” Jane’s not even sure why she’s doing that much. Maybe it’s the way the girl tried to get up on her own after having her shoulder dug into; maybe it’s how she didn’t hide her face to cry. That’s a kind of bravery Jane can only respect. 

“Sorry,” the girl breathes out. “Thank you.”

Jane keeps silent, finally having reached the end of the corridor. Behind the door, there’s a side alley with her car parked in it.

“Couldn’t let you die, could I?” she ends up saying right before pushing the heavy metal panel open. 

The girl snorts, “You saying that is exactly why we wanted you, you know? You have heart.”

Jane huffs out a laugh at that, shaking her head. “That’s bullshit,” she answers, stopping next to the wreck that is her car and putting the girl down carefully. “I’m not good.”

When she turns back to get in the driver’s seat, she finds bright green eyes surrounded by lines of pain set on her. It makes her freeze. “Neither am I,” the girl says. 

“This your car?” Houghlin interrupts them, giving them the chance to look away. Jane gets in, Houghlin rounding up the vehicule to take the passenger side while the girl slumps in the back. “Thank you,” Houghlin adds, “for getting us out of here.”

Jane doesn’t look at either of them. She doesn’t know what to say to that; she just starts the car and drives away.

Houghlin is fast asleep on the ragged couch. The night has barely fallen, but the day has been particularly exhausting for an ordinary girl –coercion by an evil lab notwithstanding.

The Townsend girl, though, is sitting at the kitchen table, wide awake. Her right arm is limp on the tabletop. She looks at Jane; she has a face for laughs, which makes Jane feel unbalanced when she looks so serious.

“I’m going to get the medkit,” she says to regain her footing. ‘This still needs cleaning up.”

“I can do it myself,” the girl retorts, but her fingers are shaking when she rakes them through her short strands. 

Jane sighs, getting the kit quietly and coming back. When she gets too close, she sees the girl tensing up in anticipation. Ready to react. Considering her a threat despite it all.  _ It’s just the job, it’s smart _ , she thinks, but she can’t quite silence the little offended part of her heart. She did save that girl’s life. 

She puts the kit down on the table and goes to sit on the other side. “I got you this far, I’m not going to do anything to you  _ now _ . But suit yourself.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Jane understands that the question isn’t about today– it rarely is with spies.

“I wanted to be left alone.” She knows her answer isn’t what the girl is looking for.

“So you just, what? Beat up someone half to death so we’d stop sending you Christmas cards?” she huffs out a humourless laugh. “Read the definition of overkill, man,” she shakes her head, dragging the kit closer.

“Would you lot have stopped otherwise?” Jane watches her fumble for the claps with her good hand.

“Listen,” she stops, raises her hand in a placating gesture. “I’m not going to try and justify the fact that Townsend wanted to recruit you so bad they didn’t take a hint. Even though,” she tilts her head, smirking dangerously, “we spies have done worse than a little stalking, right? But did you hate the idea  _ that bad _ that you had to try and kill one of us?”

“I didn’t try to kill her,” Jane says, earning herself some raised eyebrows. “I’m just done with whatever all this agency bullshit is about.”

“I heard about what happened with MI6.” She’s looking straight at Jane when she says that, unafraid, unflinching when Jane gets up so fast her chair clatters to the ground. Her blood is acid in her veins.

“Don’t you know when to  _ shut up _ ?” she bites out through the lump in her throat. That’s always been Jane in the end: covering up pain with anger when she can’t do it with indifference. 

“I heard it’s my worst flaw, actually,” the girl chuckles without care, looking back down at the medkit, “which is pretty ironic for a spy.” She tries three times to open the damn thing before Jane gives in.

It will grate against her sense of tidiness if she doesn’t do this herself, the only way she can be certain it’s done correctly. So she takes the kit from the girl’s hand and opens it herself, rounding up the table to sit down next to her. This time, the girl doesn’t tense up; Jane wonders if that was all for show before, or if something’s changed that she didn’t catch.

She unties the bloody makeshift bandage, ignoring the reflexive jerks of the girl’s shoulders when dry blood tries hard to keep it stuck to her skin. 

Cleaning up is easy. What is less so, is when the girl softly says, “I used to believe I was safe as long as I didn’t feel anything, too. Even then I knew that the true weakness is keeping your heart from beating.” 

Jane grits her teeth, keeps working with the antiseptic, not wanting to respond in any way.

The girl continues, “It’s not a bad thing to protect yourself, but at some point you have to wonder what’s the price and if it’s worth paying it. There has to be some kind of balance. 

“Anyway, I wish I could tell you it gets easier, but it doesn’t. Hurting is hurting, and our jobs don’t give us the luxury of grieving before the next shit hits. But Townsend–” she sighs, shakes her head. “What’s the point if you’re not ready to believe me.” 

Jane yields, just a fraction “Why do you do this job, if it’s so painful?” She puts the bloody gauze down and picks up the needle and the thread.

The girl looks at her from the corner of her eyes, twitching when her skin is pierced. “Because I would be in pain anyway. At least here I have people who care about me, and I get to feel alive. It’s so fucking cliché,” she laughs at herself, turns her head away. 

They both stay quiet until Jane is done. “You’re good. I didn’t feel a thing,” the girl lies. “Thank you,” she adds this time with a sincerity she shows in her eyes. 

When she gets up, Jane feels the need to give herself some closure from their conversation. “I doubt I’d ever be ready to believe you,” she murmurs, too loud to her own ears, “because there are wounds that never close up. You don’t want a pair of those, if you can help it. But if I ever am. Ready. I’ll let you know.” 

The girl smiles, then slinks away into the shadows of the living room to sit on the armchair. She probably won’t sleep, but it’s okay. Jane gets it. She’ll be staying up the rest of the night too. 

In the morning, she doesn’t come out of the bedroom when the girl and Houghlin leave, not even trying to stay quiet. She waits five minutes before making her own way to the kitchen.

Her eyes fall on a note on the table, giving her pause. Jane wasn’t expecting that, but she inexplicably doesn’t mind. 

_ “Next time you want us to stay over, we’ll stay up together ;)”  _ it says, so ridiculous Jane can’t help laughing. And underneath, there’s a reluctant  _ “Elena” _ written up next to a bold heart and a  _ “Sabina” _ .

Jane wants to make sure they don’t run into each other ever again, because it’s dangerous. Because she has given something of herself without meaning to, received something back, and that’s the first step on the wrong road. 

She keeps the note, though. That’s the second step.

There’s things no one is ever prepared for. Jane finds out she can like that, when she gives into the chaos that is Townsend. She can’t ever be ready for the good if she keeps herself from the potentiality of the bad. And when she’s feeling strong enough to run all the way down the road, she learns that on the better end of the spectrum...there’s Sabina and Elena. There’s love.

**Author's Note:**

> When I finished writing this I looked at my screen like "thanks I hate it", but in the end I don't think I did too bad with that one haha what do you think?  
> Comments and kudos are the love of my life!
> 
> I'm on [tubulalr](https://kinsbournescream.tumblr.com/tagged/ana-writes-sometimes)


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